The Tactics of Failure: Why The Culture War Makes Sense To Spiritually Empty Evangelicals

This afternoon I listened to Ann Coulter being interviewed on TBN. Not CNN. TBN. The Paul Crouch/Jan Crouch fashion show and soap opera that you can’t look away from. Yes, that TBN. The one with Creflo, Joel, General Joyce, Kenneth and Gloria, Kim, Matt and hundreds of very, very uncool people with shocking attractions to hair-styles from other planets.

There sat Ann Coulter, blonde babe darling of the hardcore far right, loathed and hated enemy of all things liberal, author of the new hit Godless, a book I haven’t read, but whose reviews tell me is an assault on the left as the “anti-God” side in American politics. There sat Ann on the same couch as hundreds of Pentecostal preachers and well-dress Apostles to America’s women, talking to Paul Crouch, Jr.

There has been a bit of a blogosphere dust-up regarding exactly what Ann’s religious commitments might be. Based on my limited knowledge, it appears to me that Ann is either a cradle Christian occasionally returning to church or one who is in what some evangelicals might call modest “seeker” mode, though she certainly seems sold on some aspects of historic, orthodox Christianity. She’s read more than a few things, articulates the content very well, but when she gets to the experiential side, she seems, shall we say, somewhat less than convincing.

Her appearance on TBN was obviously calculated to sell her book to the evangelical community, for I suspect that TBN isn’t a regular feature on Ann’s video ipod, though I could hope her choice of attire gains some influence over the current mix of The Bird Cage meets General Joyce’s $50 million dollar clothes budget.

Ann spoke contemptuously of liberals during her little interview. She said, with all sincerity, that part of her prayers were prayers for liberals and thanking God that she wasn’t one. An uncomfortable Paul Crouch, Jr. seemed to immediately recall that somewhere it says that “I thank you, Father, that I am not a liberal,” isn’t a good prayer. “We’re all just sinners saved by grace,” he said. Whatever. Eye roll.

What is Ann doing on Christian television? Is she there as an example of TBN’s Charismatic style of Christianity? Is she giving her testimony? ***ahem** Or is she there as an example, a voice, to evangelicals of what it’s now all about: the culture war against those hated liberals?

The War All Around You

Everywhere one looks, evangelicals are becoming the religion of the culture war. Liberals vs evangelicals almost defines America these days, and evangelicals don’t mind at all. The more intense it gets, the more we seem to know our place.

Increasingly, major evangelical ministries are becoming more interested in the culture war than any other topic. Take Baptist Press, the former press outlet for the Southern Baptist Convention. These days, fully half of the articles and columns coming from Baptist Press are culture war related, particularly dealing with abortion, homosexuality, feminism, stem cell research, support of the War in Iraq, displays of the Ten Commandments and politics in general. The SBC itself is, on some days, fortunate to get 1 or 2 articles on its own press service.

The SBC mounted a thinly veiled GOP-friendly voter registration movement in this past Presidential election., calling it “I Vote Values.” The SBC’s leading theologians are becoming secondary voices for the Republican party, with radio programs and press releases echoing the daily talking points from the RNC. SBC churches are more politicized than ever, and vigorous defenses of a political, culture war interpretation of discipleship are common. Younger culture war pastors, invigorated by the examples of SBCers like Jerry Falwell, Christian America historians like David Barton, and political preachers like D. James Kennedy, are making increasingly brash statements in the pulpit about what views on the culture war are compatible with being part of SBC churches.

The recent national story of Minneapolis pastor Greg Boyd losing over a thousand members in response to his stand against typical conservative culture war issues- such as the display of the American flag during a Christian worship service- points out how strongly many evangelicals feel about the culture war. They see the culture war mission as the critical component of living as a Christian in America. While no one denies that issues of life and sexuality are part of any Christian’s commitment to truth and compassion, the identification of these culture war issues with the myth of a Christian American is disturbing. Where is the Gospel?

I believe the upcoming Presidential election cycle will bring about an unprecedented amount of Christian culture war rhetoric. The likely candidacy of Hillary Clinton will energize many American evangelicals as never before. Christians will be subjected to endless reminders that the “Salvation” depends on the defeat of Clinton. Clinton’s likely appeal to her own faith and to younger, anti-Bush, anti-war evangelicals will make the rhetoric among evangelicals even greater.

Of course, it would be hard to beat what one can hear right now from a Rod Parsley or Richard Roberts. A recent Roberts’ message that I overheard openly stated that the Bush re-election was God’s victory over Satan, and that it was the church that elected Bush. Such rhetoric is wrong and spiritually dangerous, but it also indicates a level of evangelical failure that is seldom discussed.

I recently read that Dr. John Piper said he was concerned about the effects of N.T. Wright’s views on justification on the “souls” of people. I wonder if evangelical leaders have contemplated what the effects on the “soul” could be with a political message and a culture war Gospel being sold by trusted leaders to a church often devoid of a Biblical mission.

Perhaps the evangelical lust for success in the culture war tells us more than we see it at first; perhaps it tells us about a more profound and troubling failure.

The Failure of Spiritual Formation

The most basic aspect of any religion is the ability to pass on its DNA to converts and the next generation. That DNA contains the essential beliefs, texts, stories, theology and articulation of the religion, but it also contains the “shape” or “form” of how that religion is lived out in the world in the lives of its believers.

For example, Islamic beliefs are easily summarized by any high schooler with Wikipedia, but what about living the Islamic life? There are already major divisions in the religion regarding religious practice, but fitting Islam into the modern, globalized and secularized world is the greatest challenge of all. Resurgent Islamicism is, in large part, a struggle to change the world to fit Islam because of the threat that Islam will be diluted and changed by the world.

Evangelical Christians face a similar challenge. The DNA of our religion can be passed on in books and other forms of written communication, but how do we live the life of a Christian? This is the question of “Spiritual formation,” a much talked about subject among practical and experiential theologians and practitioners. How do we “form” our children into disciples? How do we bring them to the place of choosing Christian identities? How can we influence them toward the forms of Christian life, practice and worship that bring authentic Christianity into this generation, and prepare to move it on into the next?

Spiritual formation has, traditionally, been the work of the Christian family and of the church, particularly its teaching and pastoral ministries. Most evangelicals are aware of aspects of spiritual formation, even if they have never heard the word. Quiet Time. Personal Worship. Accountability. Discipleship groups. Mission trips. Choosing a Church. Knowing God’s Will. Prayer Life. Scripture memory. Personal retreats. Revival. Evangelism training. Rededication. These are some of the ways that evangelicals have talked about and attempted to carry out the important work of spiritual formation.

American evangelicals can point to hundreds of publications and programs aimed at some kind of spiritual formation result. The fact is that any honest, but generous judgement would say that after a century of moderate success, the twentieth century and beyond have witnessed an unparalleled failure of evangelicals in the area of spiritual formation. In other words, evangelicals are increasingly spiritually empty, and they are susceptible to a message that the world needs to be changed rather than themselves.

Both families and churches struggle in turning out disciples. American churches specialize in an consumerized, gnostic, experiential Gospel that is increasingly inseparable form the culture in which that church exists. American evangelicals have become as much like the dominant culture as it is possible to be and still exist at all. In fact, evangelicals continue to exist, in large measure, because they have mainstreamed the culture into their religion so that one’s Christianity hardly appears on the radar screen of life as any in any way different from the lives of other people. We are now about values, more than about Christ and the Gospel.

Evangelicals should come to terms with this: they are in every way virtually identical to suburban, white, upper middle class American culture. They are not as bad as the worst of that culture, but they are increasingly like the mainstream of that culture and are blown about by every wind of that consumerized and materially addicted culture. In fact, go to many evangelical churches and the culture is so present, so affirmed, preached and taught that one would assume that there is nothing whatsoever counter cultural about the affirmation that Jesus is Lord.

This saturation of the church by culture is particularly observable among young people. Compare an evangelical youth group to a group of Muslims or Amish. Which of these groups is most identical to the culture in which it exists?

American Christian youth agonize over the overt symbols of cultural conformity. Every youth minister knows these questions. They are not questions of following Jesus; they are questions of the extent to which I can identify with the culture and still, somehow, someway, define myself as a Christian.

Listen to the blogosphere conversation on the subject of separation from “movies,” for example. Rather than admit that groups like the Amish are actually living out with integrity their vision of discipleship and culture, evangelicals dwell at the edge of culture, with some voices inviting them “in” to be missional, while other voices are lecturing them to abstain and opt “out,” in the name of being a “good witness.”

This situation doesn’t happen because evangelicals know how to spiritually form disciples. It happens because we are largely unable to decide what it means to be spiritually formed or even how to get there. So we get blog posts on movies, exposed stomachs and preachers that say “crap.” The obvious answer- to form church communities that make clear choices in the area of spiritual disciplines and influences- seems completely unimaginable to most evangelicals. In the meantime, let’s get out the vote.

Spiritual formation is no longer interesting to most evangelical churches. Pentecostals want experience and megachurches want activity and support. The point at the end of it all is the expansion of the churches themselves and the ability of individual Christians to live in support of the church as the proper end of the earthly Christian life. The missional goal of most evangelical churches in America is the further growth of the church.

I am suggesting, therefore, that the increasing interest in the culture war among evangelicals is not an example of a reinvigorated evangelicalism remaking its culture. Instead, I believe the intense focus by evangelicals on political and cultural issues is evidence of a spiritually empty and unformed evangelicalism being led by short-sighted leaders toward a mistaken version of the Kingdom of God on earth.

The Culture War makes sense to Christians who have little or no idea how to be Christians in this culture except to oppose liberals and fight for a conservative political and social agenda- an agenda often less than completely examined in the light of scripture, reason, tradition and experience. Those evangelicals- like Greg Boyd- who have challenged or broken the identification with the political right can testify to how they are immediately viewed. Dissenting evangelicals are labeled as pro-abortion, pro-gay marriage and pro- Democrat instantly. The rhetoric of the culture warriors is relentless in associating dissenting evangelicals of every kind with the issues of abortion and homosexuality. No one could be blamed for believing that evangelicalism was a modestly spiritual movement with the goal of banning abortion and gay marriage. (I predict the comment thread of this essay will demonstrate exactly what I am saying.)

In this scenario, there are a number of bizarre takes. The SBC’s most well known theologian doesn’t write books of theology. He hosts a daily talk radio program on cultural war issues. Rod Parsley may preach about miracles, but he uses his influence to elect candidates and promote political causes. Politicians elected by evangelicals get re-elected by appealing to the hot button culture war issues, but their positions on issues like gambling or Aid to Africa are unpredictable and often unknown. The Left Behind movies become video games where the godless are shot by Christians defending themselves. And of course, Ann Coulter appears on TBN, promoting her take on why evangelicals ought to care about the influence of real “godless” liberals.

Where is the Gospel? Where is the missional calling of the Christian? Where is the church’s ministry of spiritual formation? Where are ministries of Word and Sacrament? All of these are increasingly buried under doublespeak and culture war rhetoric. Evangelicalism is being betrayed by many of its leaders who are building their “ministries” by the appeal to anything but the Gospel and compassion of Jesus.

The culture war agenda increasingly makes sense to evangelicals who are spiritually unformed, distracted and misled. I cannot approve of Greg Boyd’s theology of God’s knowledge, but I can say that his stand against the encroachments of the culture warriors- encroachments that come from outside the church and seek to dictate the work of the ministry itself- is commendable.

Why is Ann Coulter on TBN? Because we understand her and her war against liberals. Would TBN have the same audience for Don Carson? John Piper? Tim Keller? Especially if they talked about the Gospel?

Comments

As I write this I sit in the empty mess hall of a Christian retreat center, the youth leader enjoying his few minutes of peace during a back-to-school retreat. I write that because as i read this essay, my head screamed ‘no!’ when you spoke of the difficulties and ambiguities we are faced with as we attempt to teach youth to be followers of Christ…but my heart agrees with you. a question that runs through my head is whether the ‘missional’ values i care so much about and try to press into my students’ lives are nothing more than current young evangelicals theories on how to get around not being ‘of the world’.

Something that I wonder about along these lines is whether all this was supposed to exist int the first place. It’s almost as if Jesus avoided issues like the Roman occupation or the Essenes because they didn’t matter. I’m not sure how that example translates into today – what issues ‘matter’ and which ones don’t – but i think it would change the face of our faith. What would the church fight for if not for pro-marriage, pro-life, pro-10 commandments, pro-hanging Dan Brown (just kidding). I think you’re right. We’d fight for the gospel.

Isn’t it interesting that in other places in the world where the church is not prominant enough culturally to be involved in culture war, the church explodes with the gospel?

As a Christian culture, don’t recognize or understand the Gospel, anymore than the crowds around Jesus recognized or understood the Messiah. Instead we maintain lists of codes and rules to ensure our evangelical cleanliness.

Be assured, this young pastor reads everything that Peterson writes. He is the reason I am a pastor, and he is the reason I hope to remain a pastor (‘Soulcraft’ and ‘Tell it Slant’ on CD are first rate too).

If my vote counts, this post should be on the list when you are pulling together your book.

Michael:
Because you “nailed” it, and because this issue needs wide and deep discussion, I suggested that your post be linked on Catching The America Bug, where issues of Culture and Christianity are frequently aired. May we whom He Has Claimed as His, stop confusing and conflating our “fire” with His Light.

I think itâ€™s crucial that all Christians (but especially evangelicals) recognize that the counter cultural implications of following Christ have nothing to do with who you vote for, buying Christian CDs instead of â€œsecularâ€ ones, etc. and everything to do with who you live your life for …

I’m sure that any competent historian could trace the culture war impulse far, far back into Christian history.

I think there is, however, a remarkable difference between a Spurgeon and a Billy Sunday, and the cleavage begins in there somewhere. You can go back to Finney for moralism, but the “We have to change the culture so it fits us” and the “godless enemies of Christianity” rhetoric seems fairly twentieth century.

What, no mention of the Rush Limbaugh explosion of the late eighties and Clinton years? All that time i spent being a dittohead and listening to endless political talk shows screaming over the latest scandal…. Did Rush lead us to a better world?

God was moving in great ways throughout the earth, revivals in other countries and the Promise Keeper movement here. Fortuneately for me, God dealt with me personally and little by little I cast off the political nonsense.

I still have to support anti-abortion candidates and fight for better lifestyles for Americans, such as more available healthcare and against the mass export of jobs. The Good Samaritan didn’t talk politics.

Thank you for saying this. I agree totally. Though I am saddened by the necessity of you having to write this.

I am curious about one thing. Do you see a disconnect between the culture wars in the political sense and the absence of evangelicals being interested in good art? I have been frustrated in trying to talk art (ie Impressionism etc.) or music to evangelical friends. It’s as if that world of culture doesn’t exist.

I hope you will someday cover Christian Zionism if you haven’t already. Abortion and homosexuality concern what happens on our land, but using biblical prophecy to dictate foreign policy takes the culture war to a whole new level.

The Middle East is going up in flames and some Christians are cheering for crying out loud because it is in line with their version of end times prophecy. They cheered when WWI broke out, then WWII, the six-day war, then Vietnam, then Desert Storm I, Desert Storm II, and now the Israel-Labonese conflict.

This has to stop.

As to Ann Coulter being featured on TBN, at least she professes some kind of Christian belief (which I am still not justifying). Calvary Chapels regularly feature speakers from Israel. Here is Benjamin Netanyahu speaking to the Calvary Chapel, Fort
Lauderdale.

Michael, great post as usual. What are your criteria for cultural issues which Christians should be concerned about? Consider what might have been if more Christians had come out in vocal support of black Christians in their struggle for civil rights. I sense that much of your objection to evangelical involvement in the “culture war” has to do with the manner and attitude of their involvement.

I think our involvement in politics becomes problematic if it degenerates into an us-against-them mindset. Now “us” are conservative pro-war/pro-caplitalism Republicans regardless of their belief, and “them” are those liberals.

Because the GOP is “us,” nothing that they do except for going soft on abortion and homosexuality bothers us. Go to war on a dubiou pretext? No problem. Bribery scandals, see no evil. Erosion of our civil rights? Not a problem. Why? Because Bush, Delay, and Reed are “our” guys, and taking them to task will only create openings for “them,” and we can’t have that.

We should call for righteousness no matter what. In fact, we should even be harder on our own instead of turning a blind eye. I would hate to imagine what we would have done if Clinton had done one tenth of what Bush has been accused of. Why? Clinton is one of “them.”

Speaking of the civil rights movement, MLK recognized this early on and he knew the movement was doomed if it came down to us against them. So he spent a lot of time courting whites.

I do not consider myself a spiritually empty Christian, yet I embrace the culture war.

Why?

Because many of the things we fight against in the culture war are evil.

When millions of unborn children are sacrificed on the altar of convenience, that is evil.

When humans exchange healthy sexual relations for a perversion, that is evil.

When human beings in embryo form are deliberately murdered to better the lives of other humans, that is evil.

Jeremiah, Isaiah, and the prophets all tackled the evils of their day and did all they could to persuade the nation they lived in to put these evils behind them, lest judgement fall. Jesus pointed them out in Matthew 5 as the example we should follow — including being hated by all men because we speak against that which is popular, against the evil that men believe is good.

That said, I agree with you on some points:

1) I agree that Christians spend too much time waging carnal political warfare, when the Bible instructs us not to wage war according to the flesh. Rather than using our supernatural powers to war against evil in the world, we depend almost wholly on our own strength, and we lose.

This speaks to a larger issue of the spiritual bankruptcy of the American church, but that’s a talk for another time.

2) I also agree that demonizing Democrats is not helpful. We should be trying to reach out to *both* parties. Making the Republican party “the party of God” is a colossal mistake, as the Republican party is a creature of this world solely concerned with it’s own power. By tying ourselves too closely with it, we compromise our witness.

Yes, there are people in the democratic party who absolutely oppose everything the Bible stands for. But we should be reaching out to draw them to repentence, not declaring war on them as if they were Canaanites.

3) The idea of Christians shooting non-Christians to advance “the Kingdom of God” is, of course, too absurd to discuss. When Jesus said “he who lives by the sword dies by the sword”, I don’t think he meant “so wait until the AK-47 is invented”.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

PS. I should add that as a conversative Republican I mouth Rep talking points because I *genuinely believe* many of their answers are better than Democrat ones. But those are my personal beliefs, and not the Oracle of God. — BDP.

When we talk about Victory over Satan et al, I will tell you that I *DID* detect a significant amount of spiritual combat taking place during both Presidential elections, and pagan acquaintances of mine did also.

So while I agree with you that we shouldn’t cast Republican v. Democrat a “God vs. the Devil”, I think it’s equally misleading to state that such things are entirely spiritually neutral, and God doesn’t care who wins. He most certainly does. After all, no authority exists save those he institutes. When you’re talking about the most powerful nation in the world, capable of great good and great evil, it’s folly to think that the supenatural world isn’t going to try to influence that if at all possible.

Of course, who God wants to win and who He’s fighting for may not depend at all on party affiliation … and his views as to who he wants doing what may be very different from you or I.

So probably the best thing for a Christian to pray during such an election is for His will to be done. It may be quite, quite different than what our politics would suggest.

I find that with “culture war” and “worldview” people seem to have a highly selective reading of Francis Schaeffer, which is to say that when any reasonable reading of Schaeffer suggests that Christians abdicated the culture wars in the early 20th century that’s taken,instead, to mean that Christians need to win the culture war now to prevent the inexorable slide into godless thought that Schaeffer had described as an already completed process. Schaeffer’s eagerness that Christians should stand for something seemed predicated on believers taking a stand for Christ and against injustice, not in staking territory that they wanted back in a battle for cultural dominance.

This ties in with a selective and revisionist reading of history, in a way. Most of the culture warrior Christians who cite Schaeffer on worldview won’t cite him on environmentalism and most who cite him on the inadequacies of the views of modernist art or music don’t even think about engaging the actual art or music itself. For my part I have and I, unlike, Schaeffer, think that some of Ornette Coleman’s music is a lot of fun.

“Jeremiah, Isaiah, and the prophets all tackled the evils of their day and did all they could to persuade the nation they lived in to put these evils behind them, lest judgement fall.”

Absolutely, but I’d argue they didn’t do this through any type of political platform. Remember, they operated under a Theocracy as well. We don’t. We need to have a better understanding of what a Christian’s relationship should be to government — or possibly more accurately, how government fits into our faith.

When Jesus said â€œhe who lives by the sword dies by the swordâ€, I donâ€™t think he meant â€œso wait until the AK-47 is invented.â€

LOL! Did you come up with that?

”

Think so. Leastways, I haven’t heard anyone else say it.

“Absolutely, but Iâ€™d argue they didnâ€™t do this through any type of political platform. Remember, they operated under a Theocracy as well. We donâ€™t.”

The prophets also spoke to nations which were not theocracies either. See the books of Jonah and also Amos 1-2, in which Amos takes each of the nations of the Middle East — Aram, Gaza, Philistia, Tyre, Edom, Ammon, Moab, Judah — to task for their actions, most of those political. Similarly, many of the complaints that God had against Ninevah (presumably similar to those given in Nahum 3) were against their military cruelty — and military actions are inherently political.

It doesn’t matter whether people have formally proclaimed themselves to be “God’s people” or not. Fact is, God is judge of all the earth and not only of those who claim his name. And while he will indeed one day judge all the earth, there are things we can do to make him hurry that up and bring judgement here and now. Witness Sodom and Gomorrah.

And first and foremost of those things is the shedding of innocent blood. It is the burning of children to Moloch which excited God’s anger against the Canaanites. It is Manasseh’s practice of burning children in the fire and shedding innocent blood that made the Babylonian captivity inevitable ” For he had filled Jerusalem with innocent blood, and the LORD was not willing to forgive. ” (2 Kings 24:4).

It is similar sacrifice, IMO, that resulted in the destruction of Carthage. It was the same human sacrifice that brought upon Mexico a plague of Europeans. And so on and on, throughout history.

It is our duty, if we are truly His servants, to warn against these things when we see them.

Further: If we are in positions of political power, it is our duty to fight against them, if at all possible. Esther was not permitted the excuse that “she can’t get involved in politics”, though Persia wasn’t a theocracy either. She was warned of divine punishment if she turned her back on the innocent in time of their distress. Political action on her part was *required*.

As American citizens, we are all in positions of political power. We are not serfs or slaves. We have been granted the priceless privilege of citizenship in the world’s only superpower. Did God grant us this privilege purely to please ourselves? Of course not. Citizenship is a sacred trust, and if we do not use it to make the world a better place — which is to say, to restrain evil and protect the innocent — we are found negligent stewards, and we will be punished for it.

But that is a duty for individual Christians, and not the Church at large. The Church, being the visible representative of a Kingdom not of this world, should not be getting over-involved in said affairs. I suspect the church’s role should be more like Amos, who despite being a patriotic Isreali was able to step outside of that role to speak against the evils his own people were doing. Someone who had not fallen into the blind worship of a worldly kingdom — or political party — but who gave his first loyalty to God.

21 Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father who is in heaven.
22 Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy by thy name, and by thy name cast out demons, and by thy name do many mighty works?
23 And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.

During my drive home, tuned into a Christian radio station. Got to listen to two different programs back to back, and both were about the culture war. So tuned into another major Christian station, and guess what that program was about. Yeap! The culture war.

These programs run during rush hour, so the time slots have to be the most expensive since that is when most people tune into radio. And every one that I tuned into is about the culture war.